It was a very sad day today for the regular divers here; we were informed that a long time icon in the diving area died yesterday.
Cyber The Attack Dog is no longer with us.
As for the diving, whether I can use the weather, the fact I had no air, or my mental state as an excuse, I stayed dry.
Most divers decided to dive off The Point; it was a little rough, but everyone made an expert entry, so I didn’t get any entertaining video.
That is okay by me!
I finally met Halibug and his dive buddy…
Never take a picture into the Sun on a cloudy day, otherwise it will look like this.
Nice meeting you guys – you are always welcome to debrief with us!
I sat in The Cove; TwinDuct and Professional Debriefer Paul joined me later.
The water was fairly flat outside the surf zone; divers reported that the water was warmer than the air and that the vis was as good as 20 feet.
Traditional debriefing continued.
There’s a set of storms coming into the area, so I have to see where we are on the lobster liberating and weekend dives – there might be a slight delay.
After several days of bad conditions, we’re finally back in the water to rescue more lobsters from their watery hell that they call life.
Instructor John and I loaded the Red October and made a ride out to one of our secret deep lobster spots – about a quarter acre of man made reefs, i.e. dumped heavy construction material.
The wind was barely blowing, but the surface chop was in excess of five feet and steadily rolling; if I wasn’t so macho, I would have gotten sea sick.
We anchored perfectly on target, after trolling with a GPS for ten minutes.
In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 80 feet
Waves: Nauseating surface chop with light wind
Visibility: 10-15 feet
Water Temperature: About 58 degrees, slightly colder at depth
Total Bottom Time: About 22 minutes
The water seemed cold, especially after discovering a new ass rip in my wet suit – the consequences of too much underwater peeing.
For the first five minutes, I didn’t see one bug, but as I found structure, I spotted lots of shorts.
I pinned a legal looking bug on the gravel but it turned out to be short – it was released unharmed, along with an apology.
There was a big reef structure in 75 feet of water, lined with monster bugs inside – the big ones are still staying home?
I guess that’s how they got so big.
I could not reach them.
Along the side of a pipe, I spotted a large bug, pinned it and put it in the lobster liberation bag.
Now the anxiety of getting skunked was over.
I came across another large pipe – like a six foot diameter drainage pipe – with bugs underneath the hollows.
One large lobster caught my eye; I shoved my lights at him and he shot back.
I swam over the pipe; he was right there in the open, standing on the gravel.
I moved my light to the side and pinned his silhouette.
Yet another lobster who will soon no longer wallow in misery!
I was down to 1000 psi and decided to troll around until I got to 800 psi.
That last lobster that I liberated was flapping around in my bag really hard and then it went calm.
I checked my bag and only felt one bug.
Where was the second one?
Did he crawl out of my escape-proof, spring-loaded bag?
I felt again; the second bug was right at the top, waiting for me to open it once I rescued another lobster.
I shook him down to the bottom of the bag and started my ascent to the surface.
I came up slowly, but did not do a safety stop in the open water – I didn’t want a potential current to sweep me away from the boat.
I hit the surface and looked for the boat.
Where’s the boat?
I did several 360s in the rolling swells trying to spot the boat – a 14 foot rubber zodiac has a low profile.
Luckily, Instructor John has an extremely bright LED light mounted on board when we’re in the water, and as soon as I was in the right direction and as soon as a swell passed, I got a heading for the boat.
I submerged to 15 feet and swam in that direction.
John came back with one five pound bug – three lobsters total for the night.
We literally surfed back to King Harbor, riding the incoming waves.
No pictures tonight; my batteries died and besides, people tell me that one picture of me holding lobsters looks like all the rest after a while.
Now, remember when I mentioned in my last post that we called the lobster dive Friday night due to high swells and wind?
I found out that a friend of a friend actually went out that night because, “We needed lobsters for a barbecue on Saturday.”
Apparently, visibility sucked, and someone ended up dislocating their shoulder climbing back into the boat.
I hope those were some tasty lobsters, if they caught any at all!
Speaking of bad conditions from last weekend, here again is another lesson on how not to exit Terranea Resort, presented by the famous Max Bottomtime.
